D&D 5E HotDQ looking like an early TPK...

[Riley37]

For example, you could offer the plot hooks for "Defiance in Phlan". Round out the setting, maybe make some faction contacts or Renown, do some good deeds, and get some practice at adventuring.

 

[Blackwarder]

Also, bringing henchmen and hirelings/militia from the town to storm the lair might be a good option, it will:
A. Introduce your players to the concept of using the environment/people for their advantage.
B. Allow you to introduce the nice loyalty and moral rules form the DMG (if you want to use those, I know I do ).
C. Get them used to the idea that when they have reputation that can be movers and shakers and draw a following, it's a good prologue for Rise of Tiamat.

Warder

 

[Zaran]

Are you already back at the Raider Camp? Why can't they have "random" encounters all the way back to it? An army of cultists will stir up a lot of forest creatures or they could encounter scouts. Remember that Level 2 is only supposed to last a session so they should be only 1 or two encounters away from level 3.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

So that makes me ask, more generally: when heroes come across something too powerful for them to defeat, what do they do? Go find some other task to grind XP?

Reminds me of the joke version of Castlevania, in which you arrive directly at the boss monster, without having levelled up on the way to the lair.

You run. Maybe you go somewhere else, maybe you say I'll be back later, though the monster may be long gone by then.

 

[Kraydak]

Yes, you are looking at a TPK. No, you don't have any good options. When you buy a stand-alone module, you can just get one at the appropriate power level for the party. When you buy a campaign, then the PCs need to be at the right level at the right time. Yes, you can rewrite the opposition… but that is (a) a lot of work which negates the value of buying a module and (b) just sets you up for trouble in the next episode. In some cases you can run a side-quest… but often the campaign has a time-line which makes taking breaks a total immersion breaker. Exactly the situation you are in. For most gaming groups, what you DON'T want to do is run the TPK. The PCs did nothing stupid or wrong, and sending them into the cave at level 1/2 is effectively a TPK-by-DM-fiat. In DND it is very hard to gauge the difficulty level of the opposition, and you really, really want players to be willing to take risks. In this scenario, there is no evidence that going into the caves at level 1/2 is suicide, and there is lots of evidence that that is what the module wants them to do. Running a bait-and-switch there (and that just after the infamous Cyanwrath encounter), is a terrible, terrible, terrible idea. TPK because the PCs did something stupid/risky is fine, and risking a TPK because the PCs did something stupid/risky is a good idea. This isn't that scenario.

I'd say level the PCs by fiat (which does break immersion, yes) and blame the writers, who did a frankly awful job. The first episode assumes that PCs will blindly charge into a town which is being aerially-patrolled by a guaranteed-TPK dragon. The second episode assumes that the PCs will blindly attempt to infiltrate an enemy camp, which sounds like a terrible, terrible idea unless you metagame-intuit that that was the right thing to do. Sure, the writers are allowed to assume a strong DM-nudge for episode 1 to get the ball rolling, but they needed to add a backup plan if the PCs didn't behave suicidally in episode 2, and they didn't, and your PCs didn't.

 

[Rod Staffwand]

It sounds like in the OP's preferred style of play, this is a problem for the players to solve, not the DM. As long as the DM indicates they are under-leveled and conventional methods might be disastrous, the players have a fighting shot at coming up with a solution (provided the DM can roll with what they come up with).

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Yes HotDQ has some problems. It does assume a lot of metagaming, which is fine in some ways, but assuming that "we won't get attacked by the dragon since we aren't thigh enough level!" and things like that is not the type of metagaming I really want. I had to prod them into entering the town despite them saying to me "are you f'ing crazy? That's a big blue dragon and we are lvl 1 schmucks!". I hate to encourage that kind of thinking, aka assuming script immunity. And yes I could have just made sure they got enough random encounters to get to the levels the adventure wants them at, make sure they finds all kinds of extra potions, etc. Everything is perfectly setup for them. Just not our style. I probably should have rewritten a lot of it, but then what's the point?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

It sounds like in the OP's preferred style of play, this is a problem for the players to solve, not the DM. As long as the DM indicates they are under-leveled and conventional methods might be disastrous, the players have a fighting shot at coming up with a solution (provided the DM can roll with what they come up with).

That is true. I'm more thinking out loud. A TPK is not the end of the world, always more PC's to play. And maybe they will blow my mind with a great approach. We didn't play last night so they have some extra time to come up with solutions.

 

[Gradine]

My dad had a particularly rough time growing up. He didn't top five feet until after high school, which wasn't in a particularly great neighborhood. I was pretty scrawny myself in high school. We used to go on hikes through the woods together, and once I showed him a particularly gnarly liking branch. He asked me if I knew what that was called. When I said it was a stick he shook his head. "We call that an equalizer."

If your party is underleveled for a particular fight, they need to find an equalizer. Make it clear that they will be completely outmatched if they try to take them on in a straight up fight, and give them the opportunity to problem solve. Maybe they can lure then into an ambush or a trap. Trick then into separating and picking then off one by one.

5th edition is really bringing back the idea of unwinable encounters, and while this wasn't one originally by design, it has become one in your particular campaign. The key here is to remember that unwinable encounters aren't there to TPK your players, but to teach them how to solve problems without resorting just to violence. They are encounters that aren't designed to be fights (or at least not fair fights).

So introduce some equalizers. There are already traps there to be turned against their masters. Let Cyanwrath separate from his berserkers. Play up the tensions between to remaining factions, allow players to weaken them by turning them against each other. Fiction is full of examples of clever heroes tricking physically superior foes.

The alternative is to make the encounter optional. Keep in mind that circumventing an encounter is the same as defeating the encounter and worth the same amount of xp.

If you want you continue with the a adventure path (and presumably you do) then it will be worthwhile to introduce encounters between episodes to catch your PCs up to the appropriate level, or this will continue to be a problem for you.

 

[Kraydak]

Unless the opponents are played sufficiently stupidly that you lose more versimilitude than you would have lost by arbitrarily leveling up the PCs, the fight is a "rocks fall, everyone dies" roflstomp for the NPCs. It is as bad as any DM-fiat TPK, and such should be avoided at all costs. The encounter can't be skipped without completely redoing the dungeon (why buy a module?), and skipping it doesn't actually help: the PCs would then be underleveled for the next bit of fun. You also can't really delay the episode for a bunch of side quests.

Just level up the PCs. Actually, just swap to mile-stone leveling. Much safer.